KITCHEN CALL: Get creative with cherry tomatoes

In the sizzling heat of August, I look for recipes that require little or no cooking. I’ve exhausted the classic caprese salad — tomatoes, mozzarella and basil drizzled with olive oil.

Linda Bassett/ KitchenCall@aol.com

The tomato-growing gene must have skipped me. Every woman in my family inherited it, except me. My grandmother, mother, sister, and now my daughter, all grow beautiful, deeply red tomatoes. My daughter also grows yellow, red, orange, green, and purple tomatoes. Each is as bright as a jewel with a flavor just as precious.

My favorite farmer at the market displays beautiful tomatoes. My friends and colleagues, all backyard gardeners, grow beautiful tomatoes. Last week at my annual check-up, my physician pulled out her phone to show me photos of yesterday’s crop from her garden.

I grow squirrel food. Each tomato on my vines attracts a hungry squirrel to match.

So, this summer I gave up and accepted all gifts of garden tomatoes. In the sizzling heat of August, I look for recipes that require little or no cooking. I’ve exhausted the classic caprese salad — tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil drizzled with olive oil. I’ve tried every variation substituting feta, goat blue, ricotta salata cheeses. Yawn! I’ve done the leafy green and tomato salads, the open-faced sandwiches, and the chopped fresh tomato sauce over pasta and pizza. More yawns.

Now it’s time for something new. A salad made with 2 cups fregola, the Sardinian version of cous-cous. Cous-cous is a very tiny grain, the Middle Eastern equivalent of pastina, steamed and tossed with vegetables, nuts, and dried fruits and spices.

In the Israeli version the grains are larger. In Sardinia, the large grains are toasted, caramelized, slightly chewy. (Look for it on the shelves of the international section of the supermarket or in specialty shops.) It’s cooked just like pasta, and for salad, cooled and mixed with garden vegetable for salad. So just a little heat applied here. I make the salad early in the day and let the flavors mingle in the fridge. I use whole cherry tomatoes so the juices don’t mess with the dressing. I put in the herbs and ham for just before serving to keep their flavor bright. Without the ham, you have a vegan main course.

When I don’t want to turn the stove on at all, I choose the largest cherry tomatoes, hollow them out and stuff them. I often stuff cherry tomatoes with tabouli, a mixture of bulgur wheat, fresh herbs, olive oil and lemon juice. My new favorite is inspired by a BLT with a creamy filling.

Easiest to find and use is whipped cream cheese, but if it’s readily available I’ll mix the cream cheese with mascarpone, sweet Italian cream cheese. The sweetness accents the bacon’s saltiness beautifully.

CHERRY TOMATO & FREGOLA SALAD

Makes 4 to 6 servings

Since every color of the rainbow is in this salad except blue, I pile it into a blue bowl.

To chiffonade basil, stack the leaves together and roll them, jelly-roll style, tightly. Cut crosswise so that they resemble blades of grass.

2 cups fregola

1 pint small cherry tomatoes

1 large cucumber, peeled, seeded, and diced

1/2 small yellow pepper and 1/2 small orange pepper, seeded and cut into a small dice

1. Bring a large saucepan of water to a boil. Add fregola; simmer about 8-12 minutes, until tender. Drain and cool until still warm. Add it to a bowl with the cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, yellow and orange pepper, and red onion.

2. Whisk together lemon juice and zest, salt, and olive oil. Pour over fregola mixture and toss gently. Make ahead this far and store, tightly covered in the refrigerator until ready to serve. Remove from refrigerator 20 minutes before serving. Add the fresh herbs, cheese, and prosciutto. Toss gently to combine.

BACON & CREAM CHEESE-STUFFED TOMATOES

3 pints cherry tomatoes, top removed

2 8-ounce tubs whipped cream cheese

12 slices bacon, cooked until crisp then drain on paper towels

1/4 cup chives, minced

1. Hollow out cherry tomatoes with a melon scoop. Invert them onto paper towels to drain, for 20 minutes.

Linda Bassett is the author of “From Apple Pie to Pad Thai: Neighborhood Cooking North of Boston.” Reach her by e-mail at KitchenCall@aol.com. Read Linda’s blog at LindABCooks.wordpress.com. Follow Linda for quick recipes on Twitter at @Kitchencall.